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Tailoring involves tailoring schools to students and tailoring students to school and to life.
Tailoring schools to students:
Self-evident statement 1:
Turnoff is an underrated outcome of education. Turnoff is below naivete. Naive people are willing to be taught. Turned off people want no part of structured learning. While we consider the lack of literacy of our graduates, we seldom consider how many among them refuse to speak English-Class English, listen to public radio or watch public television, or relax by reading the classics, . . . These people are turned off. Now consider: how many were turned off by school? What would have generated enthusiasm? To place the blame on teachers is a shallow point indeed. Schools are not designed for teachers to be successful. They can only perform at the level that bureaucracy allows.
Self-evident statement 2:
People of all ages, including students, will turn off from situations which are ego-deflating, not realistic, or not useful. From much available data, we can see that schools are teaching more turnoff than they inspire. Our best educational options, realizing there are no global guarantees: insure that schools are realistic and useful, and contrive for them to maintain high individual student levels of self-value. Note: Self-esteem would be a good phrase here, but it has been abused to where it means too many things to too many people. Self-esteem cannot be taught. It resides as a birthright. The only guarantee humanity has regarding self-esteem is that, to the extent it has been shattered, people who have lost it cease to care enough to try. High self-esteem can produce both the best and worst world citizens. Through unnecessary competition, schools wholesale low self-images.
Self-evident statement 3:
No matter what classroom tactics are conjured and used, they will work well only with some students, some teachers, under some conditions. Schools must target all students individually--not attempt to hit all with shotgun approaches.
Self-evident statement 4:
Many intelligent people are not scholars. In schools, intelligence is measured by scholarship. Ask, however, how long would it take to teach a twenty-year-old person what was learned in the first grade? Simplistically stated, prowess in school is much more than a measurement of ability; it is a measure of mental maturity. That is, is a student mentally mature enough to overwork (work more than normal) to achieve? We can restructure the school ambiance to imply that those who lag behind the rest are, in fact, too immature to work hard enough to stay abreast. They have failed to learn essential feeder concepts well enough. Please note that stupidity is an ego-deflating life-sentence. Mental immaturity can be overcome.
Self-evident statement 5.
To target instruction economically, schools must aim at groups of students with similar characteristics. Note: we are not espousing "tracking" or so-called "homogeneous" grouping here. Tracking results in groups which are homogeneous in a past-performance sense only. It is an appalling thing to do to a student body. Note for those who cry, "Elitism" or "Separatism," we counter by stating that mixed classrooms do not result in acceptable literacy, and humanity has few greater "separating" attributes than turnoff and illiteracy. Illiteracy is a life sentence and not worth whatever else may be gained from mixed classrooms. Frustration from the competition in mixed classrooms is much of the cause of turnoff and the at-risk subculture. Hates are as likely to be carried from mixed classrooms as is the spirit of cooperation. As with all other educational strategies, mixed classrooms are good for some--perhaps most. However they are disaster for others. Only a teacher who knows each student well can determine who is who. When schools are organized so that teachers can come to know their students well, literacy will increase and at-risk populations will diminish.
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Self evident statement 6.
All students will fall somewhere on two continua. Some are quick learners--they reach mastery first. Some are willing to do extra work to stay caught up or are anxious to surge ahead. Thus a student body has four types of students, which can be easily determined by teachers who know them well. Those who are quick, willing learners, those who are quick, unwilling learners, those who are slow but willing, and those who are slow and unwilling. Note: classroom strategies which are turnons for any one type are turnoffs for the other three.
- Unwilling learners are at risk They can be determined by their propensity to use street English, exhibit impropriety, and resist school work.
- Willing learners can be identified by the quality of their homework, their attendance, and their enthusiasm.
- Classroom strategies which will work for any one of the four groups, are usually turnoffs for the other three.
- The obvious solution: contrive for willing students to have the freedom of unstructured classrooms, according to their degree of willingness. And, for at-risk students to be assigned structured classrooms with small numbers of students and one teacher for most of the school day, according to their degree of turnoff. At-risk youngsters should be evaluated by their progress in mastering essential concepts. That places them in competition with themselves, rather than with their classroom mates.
Structuring schools for these classrooms is more described in Save Our Schools, Ralph E. Robinson and Barbara Ann Beswick, Online document
Tailoring young people to school and to life.
Self-evident statement 1. Since low self-values cause not caring enough and since learning is accumulative, humanity will be best served by having learners at their most caring and most willing. Self-value is measured by an individual by his or her successes. When success is more achieved through status as a rebel than by cooperating with parents, teachers, clergy, or the law, humanity can expect an at-risk subculture to form. Success oriented schools are organized so that time enough is allowed to learn some things well enough. Success oriented schools, thus insure "controlled success."
Self-evident statement 2. Controlled success shows each young person that he or she is capable of working on quality levels, that quality and success are functions of quality time on task. Working on high quality levels is an admirable habit to carry to life and workplace. As a young person begins to associate success with quality work, and begin to work on quality levels, he or she will begin to mature mentally and make wiser decisions.
Self-evident statement 3. School economies are maintained in two ways:
Students are taught only to the extent they need to be taught.
Large classrooms of easily taught, willing students will offset small classes of difficult-to-teach youngsters. Appropriate classroom strategies even out the teacher workload.
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